Woolcock v J S M Properties Ltd [1993] UKEAT 681_92_2204

EAT
Woolcock v J S M Properties Ltd
[1993] UKEAT 681_92_2204 · 1993-04-22

JUDGE J PEPPITT QC:

This is the preliminary hearing of an appeal from a decision of the Birmingham Industrial Tribunal made on the 29th June 1992. By that decision the Tribunal found unanimously that the Applicant, now the Appellant before us, had not been unfairly dismissed.The facts can be stated shortly. The Respondents are a company carrying on business managing commercial and residential property which they, from time to time, buy and sell. The Appellant was their Manager. He was responsible for the maintenance of the Company's property; the collection of rents; property acquisition and the general running of the Company. He was dismissed on the 27th June 1992 for gross misconduct.The misconduct alleged against him was that whilst working for the Respondents he had, without informing them, indulged in private work upon the property market for which he used the Respondents' facilities and, in some cases at least, represented the Respondents as acting as agent for his private business.The Tribunal, having heard the evidence, found in paragraph 17 as follows:
". . the applicant failed in particular to tell the employer the nature of his private work and what was going on e.g. the purchase of the two properties, the use of the facilities and perhaps most important of all the fact that he was representing the company as acting as agent for his private business. On balance the tribunal are satisfied that this amounted to a conflict of interest."
The Tribunal went on to find that the Respondents were reasonable to dismiss the Appellant on those grounds and that before doing so they reasonably investigated his side of the story.Mr Woolcock does not seek to persuade us that on the facts as found by the Tribunal the decision to dismiss could not be justified. Instead he argues that the findings in paragraph 17 of the decision, and in particular the finding that he failed to tell the Respondents the nature of his private work, was against the weight of the evidence and accordingly perverse. He relies upon two matters in particular. First of all, he says, that he had notes of an early meeting with his employers which had been kept in his personnel file but which at some stage had been removed and did not re-appear until the Tribunal hearing and then only in part. The missing part he said, would or might have supported his case. Secondly, says Mr Woolcock, his assistant Miss Hickman, has since the decision of the Tribunal, indicated that she would be able to support his case, at any rate to the extent that the employers were aware of the nature of his private work.We, as an Appellate Tribunal have no jurisdiction to interfere with findings of fact by a Tribunal unless those findings of fact are without evidential basis or such that no reasonable tribunal could have arrived at them. We are also empowered to interfere if the Tribunal acted under an error of law. No such error is relied upon here.We have read the decision with some care and we have heard what Mr Woolcock has to say to us. We are satisfied that there was evidence to support the Tribunal's findings in paragraph 17 of its decision and that accordingly, the decision is one with which we cannot interfere.As to Mr Woolcock's suggestion that documents were missing from his personnel file, that matter was raised before the Tribunal and considered by them in paragraph 14 of the decision. As to the possible assistance which might be derived from the evidence of Miss Hickman we are far from satisfied that Mr Woolcock could not have obtained her evidence in time to call it before the Tribunal. He was represented by solicitors at the time and there are a number of well-known avenues by which witnesses, even witnesses in the employment of the opposite camp, can be interviewed and if necessary, ordered to attend the hearing to give the necessary evidence. Nor are we satisfied from what Mr Woolcock has been able to tell us, that Miss Hickman, even if she were to give evidence, would be able to refute, other than in part, the findings of fact contained in paragraph 17 of the Tribunal's decision.For all these reasons we have no alternative but to say, as we now do unanimously, that this appeal must be dismissed.